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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24094123">Before the sun sets on the third day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar'>Aethelar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Little Mermaid Elements, M/M, Mermaid!Newt, Mershark!Graves, mermaid au, seawitch!Grindelwald</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:55:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,113</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24094123</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You know the story. Mermaid saves someone from drowning and falls in love; sells their voice to the sea witch for legs and three days of freedom before the contract closes in. It's the classic tale.</p><p>It starts in an abandoned shipping container at the bottom of the sea, where Newt finds a thunderbird and decides to take him home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Percival Graves/Newt Scamander</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>263</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Before the sun sets on the third day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Fair warning: I have never been to New York. Apparently it has beaches? I'm picturing Blackpool. Maybe Scarborough. Apologies if this is not the case.</p><p>Fair warning part two: for minor violence / threats, including references (but only references) to marine predators doing their predating thing.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Being on land is… fine. It’s fine! Newt’s fine. I mean, no, it’s objectively torture and his feet feel like they’re being shredded with every step, but. It’s fine. He’s good.</p><p>“Three days, huh,” he says. The words scratch dry and painful against the lining of his throat and come out in a hoarse breath of air. He scowls, and stubbornly keeps talking. He doesn’t do it to be listened to. He does it because thoughts outside the head are somewhat more linear than thoughts inside the head, and just at the moment he could use the help in keeping them straight.</p><p>“Three days. That’s fine. I can do that.”</p><p>After all, he’s made his way successfully to the end of the beach and it’s only taken an hour out of his first day. He takes the spelled clam shell out of his pocket and tilts it open an inch, just enough for the shrunken occupant inside to look out.</p><p>“Frank,” he says. It comes out as a soundless wheeze, but the thunderbird tilts his head all the same. “Is this Arizona? It’s got sky. And, um, rocks. They aren’t very red, maybe the current changed?”</p><p>Frank shrills a sad warble of denial and Newt bites his lip in frustration. “Well, which way?” he asks. The edge of the beach is lined with wooden planks, like one of the old ships if they were flat instead of ship-shaped, and beyond that a series of tall, blocky buildings. He’s already tried walking on the wood, and though it’s less pebble-strewn than the sand it’s not actually any less painful.</p><p><em>Every step will feel like walking on glass</em> isn’t the sort of thing to pay attention to ground covering, Newt guesses. When he’d agreed, he’d been thinking of the worn-smooth sea glass, and he won’t say he regrets his life choices because it’s still important to get Frank home, but. He maybe regrets the finer details. Of some of his choices. A little bit.</p><p>Not ascertaining that Frank didn’t know where Arizona <em>was</em> before starting the countdown clock was, maybe, one of those things.</p><p>He spots a human. There aren’t many out - it must either be too early or too cold for them because they’re sun creatures, aren’t they? Newt doesn’t think they migrate, but he’s definitely noticed an increase in them during the summer months. He’s glad it’s winter now though, because even as weak as it is the unfiltered daylight makes him squint. But! Unseasonal or not, he’s found a human.</p><p>“Excuse me,” he wheezes, flagging the man down. “I’m trying to get to Arizona. I have a thunderbird, he needs to go home, and if I don’t get him out of this clam in three days then it’s going to eat him. And, um, I’ll turn back into a mermaid and belong to the sea witch. So really, it’s a bit important.”</p><p>The human frowns at him in concern, fingers twisting nervously in the handle of his briefcase. “Are you all right?” he asks. “Are you choking? Do you need - is it <em>gas?</em> No, it can’t be gas. You don’t look like you’re choking. Do you want to sit down? Do you need some clothes?”</p><p>Newt blinks. Opens his mouth. Closes his mouth. Opens his mouth again, then leaves it there in consternation as he remembers that his voice is rattling around a shell in Grindelwald’s cave.</p><p>“Oh,” he mouths, and, slowly, not quite sure how it works with his tail split in two and made knobbly, sits down.</p><p> </p><p>The man, it turns out, is called Jacob. He wants to open a bakery - a place where food is made into other, better food - and he has a meeting later that day in the bank to ask for a loan. He came to the beach on his way to the station to calm his nerves, back at his one-room bedsit he has some spare clothes Newt can borrow, and he’s never seen a thunderbird before in his life.</p><p>“Amazing,” he says, for the fourth time, staring at the tiny world inside the clam.</p><p>“You really think so?” Newt asks, preening. The clam is Grindelwald’s, but the changes inside to tweak it and make it as close to Frank’s memory of Arizona as possible - that’s all Newt. There was just something about the barren white interior that felt cold and unfriendly, he couldn’t just <em>leave</em> it like that even if it was the only way to keep the thunderbird safe when Newt found him trapped in an upturned shipping crate at the bottom of the sea.</p><p>Not that he’d drown now, Newt supposes. But still, the clam is spelled - it’ll last until they get to Arizona, then dissolve on its own and let Frank go. Or it’ll last three days then seal shut with both Newt and Frank inside it. One of the two.</p><p>“It’s so small,” Jacob says, for… the third time? There’s been a lot of awed statements to keep track of, Newt might’ve lost count. “It’s - I didn’t know you could do this. Is it magic? Are you magic?”</p><p>“Only a little,” Newt says. He falters when he remembers the word problem, and lifts his hands to make an <em>ish</em> movement. Then, inspired, he points at the red rocks in the clam that Frank is hovering over, then at the room around them that Jacob lives in, and tilts his head in an exaggerated questioning motion. “Arizona?” he asks, mouthing it slowly. “Ah-rhi-zone-uh?”</p><p>“Let it out?” Jacob repeats, alarmed. “Here?” He looks around the cramped space, most of which is taken up by Newt’s legs sprawling inelegantly over the floor. “But I have to go to the bank.”</p><p>“Not here,” Newt corrects, annoyed at himself for his failure to communicate. “Unless here is Arizona, which it’s not. Frank’s pretty clear on the bigness of it. And the skyness. Arizona has a lot more sky than this. Please stop looking at me like that, it’s not my fault I’m whistling like an excited whale calf. Um.” He pauses to regroup, but he’s not yet willing to give up his idea of miming. “Arizona,” he repeats, pointing at Frank and then out the window at the sky. “Big. Sky. Lots of thunderbirds. I think.”</p><p>“Sure,” Jacob says uncertainly. “I don’t mind if you come. It might be a bit boring for you, but of course you can come.”</p><p>“You know what, I’ll take it,” Newt says, flashing him a close-lipped smile. Jacob smiles back with all his teeth on display but it somehow makes him look happy rather than threatening, and that alone is enough of a mystery for Newt to want to stick around.</p><p>I mean, he has three days. Three. He has time to spare, how far can Arizona be?</p><p> </p><p>No update on the Arizona question, but the <em>bank</em> is <em>far.</em> Forget Newt hobbling his way up the beach to the wooden boards, forget Newt being half-carried down the street with one arm hooked over Jacob’s shoulders - they go to the bank by <em>train.</em></p><p>Subway? What’s the difference between a train and a subway? Newt has yet to find a way to mime this question in a way that Jacob understands.</p><p>“It’s like we’re in a rip current,” he says, kneeling on the seat with his palms pressed against the window. “How do they make it stop? Are there dolphins pulling us? Um, land dolphins. Jacob, what would a land dolphin be?”</p><p>“Only two more stops,” Jacob guesses, resolutely ignoring the passengers who’ve decided to stare. They haven’t <em>done</em> anything about the staring so Newt’s not sure why they’re watching so closely. He’s wearing pants, like Jacob - though they’re admittedly shorter on him - and a shirt, even if it’s somewhat loose. He likes loose though. He feels like a manta ray with big flaps on either side of his body.</p><p>Maybe it’s the bare feet. He’s got glass stuck in them whether he wears shoes or not, and the socks made his skin crawl. Maybe it’s a thing for humans.</p><p>He resettles himself in his seat, curling up with his knees and ankles pressed together, and leans against Jacob for balance. “Does everyone travel by rip current up here? I went in one once. I scraped some of my scales off on the rocks, but there was a creature caught in it and I had to get it out. It was, um, a goodboy? That’s what it’s people called it when it got back to them.”</p><p>“You know, I have no idea what you’re saying,” Jacob says. He’s smiling his happy-teeth-smile though, even if he’s shaking his head in bemusement. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself though. C’mon, this is our stop.”</p><p>He holds out his arm to help Newt to his feet, and Newt braces half his weight on Jacob and the other half on the hanging hand-holds down the centre of the carriage. Between the two he can just about swing-hobble his way without putting any weight on his feet, and he’s quite proud of himself for thinking of it - even if the landing when he exits the train-subway door isn’t the neatest.</p><p>Stairs, though. <em>Stairs.</em> Slow, painful, and narrow enough that he and Jacob get in everyone’s way when they go up together. Not all people, he learns, are as smiley-friendly as Jacob is, and he ducks his head and wheeze-whistles an apology as someone else shoots them both a disparaging look.</p><p>“Ignore them,” Jacob insists, tucking his briefcase under his arm to better support Newt round the corner. “We’ve got plenty of time. I left extra on purpose.”</p><p>“If you were a mermaid you’d be a manatee,” he replies earnestly. “I love manatees. And they stay near the coast so you could still have your bakery, it’d be perfect. Jacob, you should visit the sea witch with me and see if he’ll turn you into a manatee. Mermanatee. Manateemaid. <em>Ow.</em>”</p><p>“Nearly there,” Jacob promises. And he’s right; only a minute later they’re back on flat land which, though it isn’t any less painful to walk on, is at least <em>faster</em> and Newt can swing his legs in wide arcs to cover as much ground as possible with each stabbing-step.</p><p>He stumbles to a halt though when they make it out of the station, barely remembering to shuffle aside to let the other humans past. It’s disorientating, moving only in two dimensions, and he keeps forgetting that the space over his head isn’t free for people to move through.</p><p>“Frank,” he says, reaching in his pocket for the clam shell. “Frank do you see this. How the <em>frick</em>, are these buildings? They’re so <em>tall.</em>”</p><p>“You’re letting him out here?” Jacob asks, darting unsure glances down the busy street. “There’s a lot of people. Do you think he’d prefer central park?”</p><p>Newt shakes his head, but his attention is occupied with tilting Frank to give him the best view. The sky is a thin strip above, branching out to follow the path of the streets between the buildings. It’s criss-crossed with lines, they look almost like trailing strips of seaweed but Newt doesn’t know what they are, connecting the buildings and running into poles that carry them down to the ground. Resting on the buildings or flying between them are birds, so many birds that he’s never seen before - and at ground level, there are people, but also a few goodboys trotting by their humans’ sides and some smaller creatures sitting on windowsills and just at the edge of a gap in a wall a tiny little brown thing that vanishes with a flick of a skinny pink tail -</p><p>“It’s amazing,” he says, unintentionally mimicking Jacob’s reaction from earlier. Even through the hoarse whistle-wheeze filter, the meaning is clear, and Jacob pauses, leaning against a wall and giving Newt a moment to look.</p><p>“You’ve never been to the city before?” he asks.</p><p>Newt shakes his head. “I found a seahorse in a kelp forest once,” he offers. “It wasn’t anything like this.”</p><p>“Wait till you try the food,” Jacob says. “There’s this place down the road - they do the best pierogi this side of the Atlantic, you’ll love it. Ah, that is,” he falters, unsure again. “If you want to stay for lunch? I don’t know if you have a home to go to. I don’t even know your name. I’ve just been dragging you everywhere and now I’m going to make you wait through a boring bank meeting and it’s probably not what you want to do.”</p><p>“Um,” Newt says, turning to him with a surprised head tilt. That’s a lot of questions. How does one mime <em>what’s pierogi</em> without knowing what pierogi is to act out. But Jacob looks concerned again, so Newt tackles the important things and huffs out a chirping laugh. “You shouldn’t worry,” he says. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. And my name’s Newt. You know, like the small swimmy thing.” He wiggles his hands and smiles - still close-lipped, he’s not sure he knows how to make teeth look friendly like Jacob does, even if his are currently blunter than usual - and it might not get his meaning across but it makes Jacob smile back at him and relax, so. Win.</p><p>“We should -”</p><p>Someone steps too close in front of them and he draws back with an alarmed hiss. Frank beats his wings, cawing shrilly as he flies up to the furthest corner of his shell, and Newt curls his body around him protectively.</p><p>“Hey,” he snarls, flaring his fins and then getting the oddest feeling when his fins don’t exist.</p><p>“Sir, that’s an <em>illegal creature,</em>” the woman in front of him says, gesturing agitatedly at Frank. “And even if it wasn’t you can’t have magical items on display! This is a no-maj street!”</p><p>Exactly <em>none</em> of those sentences make sense. <em>What.</em></p><p>“Can we help you?” Jacob asks, stepping up to Newt’s rescue and frowning confusedly at the lady. “Are you ok, ma’am?”</p><p>She points at Newt again and Newt fights the urge to slink around to Jacob’s other side and crouch. “That bird is obviously magical,” she says. “Even if you had a permit for it, and I <em>highly</em> doubt it’s one of the seven kinds of avians that are permitted under the beasts laws, you can’t just bring it out when there are no-majs around. You can’t bring it out period!”</p><p>“Well that sounds stupid,” Newt grumps from his position half-hiding behind Jacob. “Even I know there are more than seven kinds of avians in the world and I live underwater. You can’t just un-permit all the others.”</p><p>It comes out, of course, as a series of disgruntled warbles, and the woman takes in his interesting approach to fashion with new eyes. “Oh my god,” she says, waving her wand discretely over him and staring at the glowing blue tip. “Oh my god. <em>You’re</em> an illegal creature.”</p><p>“Now, really,” Jacob huffs, folding his arms. “Just because someone doesn’t speak your language doesn’t mean you can insult them like that.”</p><p>She turns her wand on him. The tip changes to a soft green. “No-maj,” she squeaks, and arrests them.</p><p> </p><p>“Here,” Jacob says a while later, handing Newt a pastry. “I was saving them for the bank, but I don’t think I’m going to make that meeting.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Newt replies miserably, and takes the pastry. It’s soft and slightly flaky in his hands and he holds it cautiously, waiting for Jacob to take one of his own and bite into it before he proceeds.</p><p>I mean, it doesn’t look like any food he’s used to, how was he supposed to know it was for eating.</p><p>“Holy fish on a kraken,” he says when he’s had a bite, going straight past whistling and into <em>trilling</em> he’s that surprised. It doesn’t <em>taste</em> like any food he’s used to. It’s. What. This is what bakeries do? Newt needs a bakery. Do bakeries work underwater? If they don’t he’ll get Jacob to put his on the shore and he’ll haunt his window like some people haunt the fishing ships for scraps, except Newt’s scraps won’t be fish guts they’ll be <em>croissants.</em></p><p>“You like it?” Jacob asks, pleased. “It’s my babcia's recipe. The secret is that they have to be really fresh - you can’t have day old puff pastry, it just doesn’t work. I made them this morning.”</p><p>Newt hums a happy affirmative, leaning his head on Jacob’s shoulder and slow-blinking his contentment as he demolishes the rest. They’re on seats again, except these ones are joined together in a single bench with no back and therefore much easier to curl his legs onto than the train-subway seats were. He’s not sure if he’s meant to - Jacob’s legs are firmly forward with his shoes flat on the floor - but it’s a relief to get the pressure off his feet and Jacob hasn’t stopped him yet, so.</p><p>It also puts him in an excellent position to make grabby hands for the pastry case.</p><p>“One more,” Jacob says warningly, but he’s betrayed by the laughing undercurrent to his tone. “You’ll spoil your pierogi. I mean, if they’ll still let us out for pierogi.” His voice turns unsure, and Newt creeps closer in comfort. “It’s a bit late for lunch, but they’re more of a snack food really. You can eat them any time.”</p><p>“I’d love to let you out for pierogi, Mr Kowalski,” a new voice says, smooth and deep. Newt scrambles to an upright position, forgetting for a second that he can’t swim and trying to push himself off the bench to twist round in the air. He catches himself in time and moves to his knees, tensed and ready to drop off the back of the bench and run if he needs to.</p><p><em>Jacob</em> might be a manatee if he were a mermaid, but <em>that’s</em> the voice of a damn shark and Newt’s having none of it.</p><p>Except when he actually catches sight of the man, he falters, squinting in confusion.</p><p>“It entirely depends though,” the man continues, ignoring Newt’s ungainly flails. “Are you willing to consent to the memory erasure spell so that we can release you, or are you still refusing?”</p><p>“Are you willing to let my friend go?” Jacob returns, not as sharply as the man but just as firmly. Newt hovers anxiously. People have blunt teeth and he doesn’t <em>think</em> they attack each other, but the man moves far too much like a predator for comfort. Even his colours are threatening, matt black and sharp white, and there’s something there that Newt can’t <em>quite </em>put his finger on.</p><p>“Unfortunately, Mr Kowalski,” the man begins, sweeping his eyes over Newt - and Newt realises.</p><p>“Mer,” he wheezes, dropping out of his stiff position in shock. Then he repeats it, louder, in the trilling language of the sea that Grindelwald didn’t take from him - “<em>Mer!</em>”</p><p>It comes out as a jumble, <em>likemelikeyouwebelongtotheseaiseeyoulikemelikeme</em> because that’s how the trills always come out, but <em>Mer</em> is a close enough approximation. Usually Newt would have words for when he wanted to be more precise, but, you know. He works with what he has.</p><p>The man - the <em>mer</em> - pauses, but doesn’t otherwise react. “Unfortunately, Mr Kowalski,” he continues, “It would be highly irresponsible of us to do so. Your friend will be fine; there is no need for you to stay with him.”</p><p>Newt frowns. He isn’t wrong. He knows he’s not wrong. The man looks human, but Newt looks human at the moment; eyes can be deceived in a way that other senses can’t be. He’s a mer. “Hey,” he trills, a collection of meanings that combine to say - well, <em>hey</em>. But politely.</p><p>“‘He’ll be fine’,” Jacob repeats flatly. “Have you even asked him what he wants?”</p><p>“I’m afraid we’re not in a position to accommodate his wants.”</p><p>“<em>Hey,</em>” Newt repeats, and this trill means <em>hey</em> but less politely.</p><p>“See, that right there makes it hard to believe he’ll be fine,” Jacob says, keeping his voice level but making it sound angry all the same. It’s kind of like the trick he does to make teeth friendly, but in reverse, and if Newt weren’t so focussed on getting the mer’s attention he’d be impressed.</p><p>He does pay attention though when Jacob turns to him and nudges his shoulder.</p><p>“They want you to stay,” Jacob says, not overly slowly but perfectly clearly. “I don’t know what will happen to you if you do, but they seem magical. Do you want to stay?”</p><p>It’s a gamble, on his part - Newt hasn’t <em>quite</em> managed to demonstrate that he understands English yet - but it’s sincere, and Newt can’t help but smile at him, even as he shakes his head. “I can’t stay,” he says apologetically, slipping back into the whistle-wheezing that’s replaced his normal voice. Admittedly there’s not much point in talking when no proper words come out, but maybe Jacob will pick something up from his tone. “I have to get to Arizona. I’ve only got three days, remember?” Three days - or, two and a half now - and still no idea which direction to walk in. But there’s a mer <em>literally less than a tail length away</em>, and if he’ll just <em>cooperate</em> then maybe Newt can get an answer.</p><p>The mer frowns though and continues to ignore him. “Like I said, Mr Kowalski,” he begins, and Newt lifts his ankles to slap his shins against the bench in annoyance (ow - that works a lot better when there’s more muscle between bones and floor).</p><p>“<em>Hey,</em>” he trills, in the least polite way he knows how, which he only remembers after the man draws in a sharp breath and falls silent is an insult which roughly translates to <em>I could literally be being eaten over here, pay attention damnit.</em></p><p>Ish. It’s. A bit messier in the actual trill.</p><p>And. There’s. Also the <em>slight</em> possibility that that’s a local phrase to Newt’s home waters, which are, in fact, a long long way from here, and that what Newt has in fact just said to this mer - this <em>distinctly shark-like mer</em>, did he mention that - was <em>pay attention and eat me damnit.</em></p><p>This, see, is the reason mermaids copied human language. To avoid. Things. Like this.</p><p>The mer’s attention hones in on him, and Newt swallows around a throat that’s suddenly a lot dryer than just being forced to breathe air should account for. He also ducks his head as if his hair will provide any sort of shield to hide behind, because that is. Those are. That’s an <em>intense</em> look you have there, sir.</p><p>“Like I said, Mr Kowalski,” the mer who is at this point ninety eight percent confirmed as shark says, his voice dipped somehow impossibly deeper and with the slightest hint of a rumbling purr. “I have your friend’s best interests at heart, and I can’t allow him to leave.”</p><p>There’s a tense silence. Jacob appears to be preparing himself for another round of squaring up, but the man shifts the heavy weight of his gaze back to him and he falls silent. Only for a second though before he glances at where Newt has frozen and shakes himself back into his determined argument. “Look, Mr -”</p><p>“Graves.”</p><p>“- Graves, I don’t think you quite -”</p><p>“How long have you known each other?” Graves interrupts. He doesn’t give Jacob a chance to speak though, turning his body to disguise the way he discretely waves a wand at the door and locks an eavesdropping ward into place. “I’d guess… not very long. A day, maybe two. Not more than three. It’s a very short time to form such an attachment.”</p><p>“It’s perfectly long enough to do the right thing,” Jacob huffs.</p><p>Graves crosses the room and pulls out a chair. His feet, Newt notices when he sits down, are flat on the floor, and just far enough apart to look naturally human. “Then let me put this plainly for you. For both of you,” he says, raising an eyebrow at Newt. “Your friend, Mr Kowalski, has been cursed. He does not belong with you. He does not belong on land. If he is not released from the curse, he will be trapped forever with someone much worse than me.”</p><p>It’s almost right, but wrong enough that Newt frowns and interrupts. “It’s not a curse,” he protests. “It’s just a spell so I can take Frank home. That’s all.”</p><p>The other two turn to him, but it’s clear from their faces they haven’t understood. Newt grits his teeth in frustration (blunt molars! So much better for grinding, before he could only gnash), and retrieves Frank from the safety of his sleeve. “Frank,” he says, opening the shell. “He needs to go home.”</p><p>“Let me see,” Graves says, leaning forwards, and Newt scrambles back towards Jacob in alarm. He gets an eye roll and an impatient sigh in return. “I’m not going to eat you, Guppy,” the <em>large marine predator</em> says exasperatedly. “However nicely you ask.”</p><p>“Um,” Jacob says, looking between them unsurely. Newt skips whistling and just holds a hand straight up over his head to mimic a shark’s fin. It doesn’t appear to help.</p><p>Next time, Newt’s going to learn sign language before he signs his voice away to a sea witch. Or how to write. He thinks he needs a typewriter for that, but he’s sure they can’t be too hard to find.</p><p>“Also, I’m not a Guppy. I’m a Newt. I mean, I’m a fish, but my name is Newt. And you can’t have Frank, he’s small and defenceless at the moment and I’m looking after him.”</p><p>“Stubborn,” Graves chides, but he sits back in his chair and Newt counts it as a success.</p><p>“Wait, you know what he’s saying?” Jacob asks.</p><p>“Not to any useful extent,” Graves admits. “I don’t need to listen to him though to work out what happened. He’s a mermaid; not many would recognise it, but it’s undeniable. He’s mouthing words when he speaks, which likely means he lost his voice recently - if he went to the sea witch I suspect, he probably traded it for his legs.” The legs in question twitch, and Newt sits up in interest. Graves knows Grindelwald? “From the way he was walking when Tina brought you in, they aren’t very good legs, but he would have been warned of that before he agreed to have them.”</p><p>“Hey,” Newt trills, and this one means <em>rude</em> but in a <em>I know, but you don’t have to say it</em> kind of way. Sea glass, remember. He thought he’d be walking on sea glass.</p><p>“And,” Graves continues, his lips twitching in amusement but not otherwise reacting, “He was probably given an impossible task to complete, with the condition that if he failed he would forfeit his freedom.” The amusement fades. “Hence why I call it a curse. Grindelwald is no one’s friend, and he isn’t known for helping people in need.”</p><p>Newt hunches protectively around his shell. Oh. Graves does know Grindelwald. It’s not exactly the sort of name you pull out a bubble, and everything else he just said was true. So. So Frank was never going to go home?</p><p>“Let me get this straight,” Jacob says, looking between the two of them. “You -” he points at Graves “- are a magic policeman. Who, if I’ve understood, should be wiping my memory and arresting my friend. And you -” turns to face Newt “- are a mermaid, and you sold your freedom because you wanted to do something good, but the deal was crooked and now you’re stuck with no way out.”</p><p>Newt hunches smaller. There’s meant to be a way out. It’s in Arizona. He still has two days.</p><p>“There’s always a way out, Mr Kowalski,” Graves corrects mildly. “Even curses have loopholes.”</p><p>There’s a pause as Jacob turns that over in his head, then he nods decisively. “Ok,” he says. “So. You said three days earlier. I’m guessing that means we have three days to break the curse.” He pushes at his sleeves in a practiced motion, a baker rolling them up to keep them out the flour. “Where do we start?”</p><p>It makes Newt hiccough out a voiceless laugh, and he un-hunches enough to smile at Jacob, scrubbing at the side of his neck with the ball of his palm. He doesn’t have gills, so it’s a pointless action, but there’s a lump in his throat that’s interfering with his breathing and it’s instinct to try and clear his gills. He grimaces though when his thoughts catch up to his new body and he shifts to scratching at the back of his neck with blunt clawless fingers instead.</p><p>“Curses aren’t to be taken lightly,” Graves warns. “Even for wizards. The sea is powerful and it’s magic even more so.”</p><p>“Yeah, well,” Jacob says. “You don’t need magic to make a mess, and I doubt you need magic to stand up to it.” Then he repeats, stronger, “Where do we start?”</p><p>This time, Graves nods. He settles back more comfortably into his chair, and the curl of his lips is approving - almost impressed. It doesn’t make him any less a shark, but Newt relaxes enough to resume his earlier position curled against Jacob. If he has to be on land, he’s decided, then tucking his legs under him like a tail and resting against a manatee-friend is probably the best way to do it.</p><p>Shark maybe-friend optional. Maybe. He did say he wasn’t going to eat anyone, and he appears to be trying to help.</p><p>It does raise the question though of how Graves knows about Grindelwald, and how the other mer is managing to blend so seamlessly into the human world. <em>He,</em> Newt notices, doesn’t hobble when he tries to walk or whistle when he tries to speak. Newt hopes he gets his voice back, because he doesn’t know how to ask that with trills.</p><p>“The task you had to complete,” Graves says to Newt, and nods at the clam shell he’s cradling in his hands. “I’m guessing it has something to do with the creature?”</p><p>He doesn’t reach for it this time, and Newt hesitates, but then bites his lip and reminds himself that even if he were back on the beach he wouldn’t be able to solve this by himself.</p><p>“He’s called Frank,” he says, holding the shell out. He angles it towards Graves; Frank is standing right at the front, one claw on the lip of the shell and two of his six wings flared for balance as he tries to lean out the shell to look around. He can’t, the protective spell keeping him inside is too strong, but it doesn’t stop him snapping his beak at Graves and lifting the other four wings in warning. “He’s a thunderbird. I need to take him home, and it’s in Arizona. There’s, um, lots of space, a big sky, and the rocks are red.”</p><p>Graves hums, tilting his head. “I’ve never seen one in person, but it looks like a thunderbird,” he says.</p><p>Newt pulls a face. “Wow. Amazing. I’m so lucky I found you.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Graves says, reading his annoyance even if he can’t pick up the exact words. “Do you have any other way to communicate?”</p><p>No. The world above the sea is shockingly short of bioluminescence, and it’d be too bright to see it anyway.</p><p>He trills, a frustrated <em>wanttocan’tcaughtonsomethingtrappedhelpmeout</em> that’s about as eloquent as a trill can get but still not quite what he wants to say. He doesn’t even have the damn fins to punctuate it properly, his meaning’s probably getting completely garbled.</p><p><em>Patience, </em>Graves hums back, <em>therewillbebloodagain.</em> It’s a low and broken rumble that was probably meant to be comforting but really misses the mark, and Newt stiffens with a sudden shiver as the sound rolls through him.</p><p>Graves has no fins either. Meaning’s probably garbled. By broken rumble, Newt means ragged, missing some notes and hitting too hard on others - could have meant anything. Maybe that’s just how all sharks talk. Holy shit, Newt is trapped in a small enclosed area with an <em>apex predator</em> how the heck is he meant to deal with this.</p><p>“Sorry,” Graves says again, grimacing and leaning further back. “It’s been a while, I forgot how it sounds.” He sounds bitter, and behind Newt’s racing heart and panic, he has a sudden thought. Maybe that <em>is</em> how all sharks talk. He tries to imagine what it would be like to scare everything off the moment he got close, and his mind refuses to comprehend.</p><p>“It?” Jacob asks, curious, looking between them. He’s shifted so that he’s - not between Newt and Graves, because their positions on the bench don’t allow it, but his arms are freer now as though he’s ready to use his fists to defend if he needs to. “The song - that’s a magic thing?”</p><p>“A mer thing,” Graves corrects, and moves on without acknowledging his own aquatic heritage.</p><p>Maybe, Newt has the sudden, awful thought, he became human because humans can’t sense sharks. It’s probably too naive and simple and he really shouldn’t pry in someone else’s life, but it’s also a devastating thought and once it’s lodged in his head it refuses to let go. “It’s ok,” he says, leaning forwards. “I trust you.” And then, because Graves looks skeptical, he trills it, putting as much sincerity in as he can.</p><p>“Appreciated,” Graves says dryly, but frustratingly he doesn’t trill back. Or - whatever you call the jagged hum-purr he did. Newt frowns and leans forward with a determined expression.</p><p>“Thunderbirds,” Graves interrupts, cutting him off with a warning look. “They live in the desert states. Arizona, I believe.”</p><p>“Arizona!” Newt repeats excitedly. <em>Finally.</em> “Where is it? How do we get there?” Even Frank’s picked up on his enthusiasm, beating his wings hard enough to create a miniature whirlwind in his shell.</p><p>“That’s great, isn’t it?” Jacob says, grinning at Newt with even more teeth than he usually does and <em>still</em> making them look happy and friendly, <em>how</em>. “That’s what you’re trying to do, take him home?”</p><p><em>Yes.</em> “Yes!”</p><p>“Not great,” Graves corrects. “Or is Arizona less than two thousand miles away for no-majs?”</p><p>Newt stills. Two - two <em>thousand </em>miles. He. Maybe. He’s. Misremembering what a mile is? It would take him a week to <em>swim</em> two thousand miles. He can’t hobble-walk it. He. No.</p><p>“There’s a train,” Jacob says. “It only takes three days, I’m sure of it. It’s not the cheapest, but - I mean, this is important. We can take the train.”</p><p>“Guppy,” Graves says, turning to Newt, and Newt bristles indignantly at the name. “How many days did you have to take your thunderbird home?”</p><p>“Three,” he says, holding up three fingers to demonstrate.</p><p>“There you go -”</p><p>“And how many days have you spent on land so far?”</p><p>“One.” He folds down two of his fingers. Two days isn’t enough time even for Jacob’s train, though Newt’s still dubious that anything could go two thousand miles overland in three days.</p><p>It’s just. Two thousand miles. It’s a lot.</p><p>Maybe Grindelwald didn’t know? Graves seems pretty certain that this whole thing was a trap, but. Why would Grindelwald trap <em>Newt?</em> He’s a fish. Not even a particular species, just one of those indeterminately fish-shaped fish that some merfolk are, with sandy gold scales that do a rubbish job of camouflaging him and a knack for silly little spells to amuse the creatures he finds on the ocean floor.</p><p>“There must be magical transport,” Jacob is saying when Newt tunes back in. “Don’t witches fly? Or - can’t you just,” he wiggles his fingers to demonstrate, “zap him there?”</p><p>“Not that far,” Graves says, frustrated. “There are some forms of interstate transport, but they’re heavily monitored. The chances of me getting a portkey at this short notice are slim to none.”</p><p>“But if you explain -”</p><p>“Absolutely not. If you had any idea how <em>rare</em> mer magic is - even just being here is dangerous.”</p><p>“You’re here,” Newt trills, still distracted by how betrayed he feels. If Grindelwald needed his help with something, he could’ve just asked. It’s not like Newt tried to hoard his spells.</p><p>“If you’ve already given up,” Jacob says hotly, “then what’s the point? You can’t say that curses have loopholes then decide that the loophole’s too much of a longshot to follow.”</p><p>“I haven’t -” Graves cuts himself off, gritting his teeth together and closing his eyes as he visibly calms himself. “Guppy,” he says, voice level again but tightly controlled. Newt looks up miserably. “You would’ve made a contract. Was there any other part to it?”</p><p>“I give him my voice and he gives me legs,” Newt recites dully. “They work like human legs would, but every step feels like walking on glass. Frank is in a clam shell for three days; if he’s home when the sun sets on the third day, the clam breaks open and he’s free. If he isn’t, the clam swallows both him and me, and we belong to the sea witch.” He shrugs. “That’s everything. Sorry.”</p><p>There might be a secret hidden in the wording, but as the other two just get an extended whistle-wheeze and a sad tone, it isn’t found.</p><p>There’s a pause as they consider. Newt dips his fingers into the shell and lets Frank butt his tiny head against them with what little comfort he can offer.</p><p>“Very well,” Graves finally says with an unhappy, but resolved grimace. “I have two days to get us an interstate portkey to Arizona. I have some favours I can call in. If I need to, I probably have some threats I can make as well.”</p><p>“Tell me where I can help,” Jacob says. “I make an excellent brother who’s come down with the flu and needs you to come out and take care of him.”</p><p>“Ah,” Graves says, hesitating then shaking his head to clear his surprise. “Hopefully it won’t come to that. I’ll let you know.”</p><p> </p><p>It apparently takes some shifty paperwork and fast talking, but Graves manages to get them both out with Jacob’s memories firmly intact and only the briefest official mention of their arrest, buried at the bottom of the dryest reports that no one ever reads. He’s still insistent that it’s too dangerous for Newt to risk being found by magicals, even just the traces of the spells that Grindelwald used a far too tempting prospect for them.</p><p>“Beasts are banned from New York for a reason,” he says, face twisting unhappily on the word <em>beasts</em>. “Only a very small part of that is for the human’s protection.”</p><p>Still, Jacob is clearly unsure about the suggestion that Newt stay with Graves while they work on the portkey, and it’s only that his own place is too small and too difficult to defend that makes him relent.</p><p>He leaves Newt with the case of pastries, pointedly ignoring the way Graves rolls his eyes and says he has an entire kitchen full of food at home.</p><p>“This is bakery food though,” Newt says, happily covering his fingers with the icing from one of the buns and licking it off. It too is like nothing he’s ever found in the sea, and it’s just as amazing as croissant is, even if Frank doesn’t agree. “Bakery food is best food, kitchen fulls can’t compete.”</p><p>“The wards will feel strange,” Graves says, ignoring his pastry-muffled whistles. “They won’t hurt you though.”</p><p>He unlocks the door and steps through, waiting as Newt hurriedly swallows and hobble-stumbles his way after him, hands leaving sticky marks where he’s gripping the door frame for balance. Walking through the wards is like brushing through a jellyfish’s tentacles; Newt feels them buzzing against his skin, jittery and uncomfortable with tiny spots of awareness all over as though he’s been hit with a faceful of icy spray. He shudders, trying instinctively to flare his fins and shake it off, but it passes as soon as he steps through the door.</p><p>“That’s human magic?” he mumbles. “Yuck. Why’s it all trapped in place so it can’t get out?”</p><p>Graves pushes off his shoes and throws his jacket over a hook on the wall. “This way.” He leads Newt slowly into the house, pausing to look back at him. “It would be quicker if you let me carry you.”</p><p>Newt huffs, annoyed. “I’m fine,” he says. “I thought you were all about patience. There will be blood again and all that.” Besides, he’s getting the hang of this walking thing. If he rolls his feet so that he sometimes walks on the heels and sometimes on the sides then he can change which part is getting stabbed and give the other parts a rest. It’s progress.</p><p>It’s also <em>infinitely</em> better than the horrible feeling of being levitated which Graves had tried earlier and Newt had freaked out over. Something about being suspended in the air but not being able to swim set off literally every panic signal he had, <em>any</em> amount of glass was better than that.</p><p>At the end of the corridor Graves taps his wand against a blank patch of wall and walks through the doorway that appears. “Here,” he says. “It’s not the sea, but it helps.”</p><p>Newt stops in the door, staring around him with wide eyes. It’s a room, but it doesn’t look like one, the ceiling arching overhead and patterned with smooth rock like an underwater cave. More rocks are scattered round the edges of the room, some flat and large enough to haul yourself out on, some smaller and more jagged, and between them stretches a large pool of water.</p><p>Not the sea. But. That’s one damn big rock pool.</p><p>“This is where you swim?” Newt asks, carefully leaning Jacob’s case against the stone-covered wall. The cave is lit by a faint but clear blue glow, like bioluminescence in the waves at night. There are no waves though, and the water itself is still and dark.</p><p>“It’s salt,” Graves says as Newt hovers at the edge, touching his fingers against the surface to make ripples. “Not that that makes a difference to you, you won’t be breathing it. Do you even know how to swim as a human?”</p><p>“Of course I can swim,” Newt replies tartly, and pushes himself into the water in one easy glide to demonstrate.</p><p>He comes up to the surface a second later, coughing the water out and gripping onto the rocks to keep himself upright. Graves steps forward, holding out a hand to help him, and Newt pushes himself off with a glare.</p><p>“I can <em>swim</em>,” he insists, kicking his legs and using his arms to keep himself upright. “I just forgot about the gills. But I’m fine. See?” And, just to show off, he makes his way round the pool in a smooth circuit, feet flashing behind him, arms tucked in tight to be streamlined through the water.</p><p>At least, that’s the plan. It doesn’t quite work though; his legs are bony and his feet are too small to give him any decent propulsion. He’s not used to using his arms for anything more than steering, and without them he struggles to keep his head above the surface - which is a ridiculously unnatural position to try and swim in anyway. Jacob’s too-large shirt billows around him in the water, and though it <em>looks</em> cool, it drags and slows him down every time he tries to go forward.</p><p>He goes under again, except this time when he instinctively opens his mouth and chokes on a mouthful of water that he forgot he couldn’t breathe, he isn’t close enough to the side to haul himself out. He flails, thrashing out with his arms; the shirt feels like a net, now, and his legs <em>still</em> aren’t doing what a tail ought to do. Panic attempts to both clamp his mouth shut but also try desperately to get more water over the gills he doesn’t have, and the dichotomy just makes him panic <em>more -</em></p><p>Strong arms grab him, hauling him to the surface. “Breathe,” Graves says, and Newt trills a high note of denial as he tries to get back underwater to safety. “<em>Lungs</em>, damnit, breathe with your mouth. Guppy, <em>breathe.</em>”</p><p>Lungs, lungs, he can do lungs. He opens his mouth and sucks in a startled breath, rattling painfully against his windpipe, then another, and again, ribs heaving as he pants.</p><p>“You’re ok,” Graves says, the faintest edges of a soothing rumble-hum to his tone though he sticks stubbornly to words. “I’m not going to let you drown.”</p><p>“I wasn’t going to drown,” Newt insists weakly, though he doesn’t think it’s very convincing. He’s seen humans in the sea before, he knows in theory that they don’t automatically die if their head goes underwater - he just needs to figure out how to make his legs work.</p><p>Though speaking of, Graves is holding him close enough that Newt’s legs are pressed against his, except he’s pretty sure that Graves’ legs didn’t used to be shark-skin rough and muscled like a tail.</p><p>He squints at Graves, ignoring the other man’s raised eyebrow. The light in the cave reflects off the water and isn’t particularly bright, but it’s still enough to see by: Graves has lost his clothes, and his bare shoulders are patterned with the dark back bleeding into the white front typical of sharks. Under the water his hips transition smoothly into a thick tail, long enough that the end of it is barely visible as more than a dark outline split into jagged fins, and though Graves’ mouth is carefully closed Newt doesn’t need to see them to know that his teeth are now sharp and deadly.</p><p>“Oh,” he says, holding himself carefully still. He’s got one arm thrown around Graves’ neck, gripping the back of his shoulder for balance. The other is braced against Graves’ chest and he can feel the steady slow thump of his heart beneath his palm.</p><p>“Um, thank you,” he adds, mouthing the shapes exaggeratedly so the meaning is clear. He’s literally at Graves’ mercy. <em>Shark</em> Graves. Being polite never hurt.</p><p>“Stop that,” Graves chides, frowning. “I’m not going to hurt you. Put your feet on the floor; it’s shallow enough to stand.”</p><p>Slowly, cautiously, Newt does, untangling his legs from the barnacle-like grip he has on Graves and feeling unsteadily for the floor. It’s sandy, and exactly as Graves says it’s close enough that the water only comes up to his chest when he stands on it. Graves waits just long enough for him to get his balance, then backs off, tail scraping along the sand as he goes.</p><p>Newt purses his lips. Putting aside the embarrassment of nearly drowning in less than a tail-depth of water, and putting aside the instinctive - and, he decides, <em>unnecessary</em> - fear of being so close to a predator, what’s left is dissatisfaction.</p><p>“Your pool is lovely,” he tells Graves, “but it’s also far too small.” It’s like Frank in the clam shell before Newt fixed it for him. Rocks and sand and bioluminescence did <em>not</em> a sea substitute make.</p><p>Graves backs up further, not understanding the words but easily picking up on Newt’s displeasure. It makes Newt more upset; he doesn’t know <em>why</em> Graves is hiding on the land, especially given that he apparently has no problem getting his tail back, but it’s not fair that anyone should be so <em>resigned</em> to people not liking them. “I don’t care if you’re a shark,” he says, stubbornly raising his chin. “You deserve better than this.” Can Graves even properly <em>swim</em> in this puddle, he’d hit the far end before he built up enough speed to stretch his muscles. Disgraceful. Absolutely not happening.</p><p>He might’ve had to put up with it before, but he has Newt now.</p><p>Newt holds the image of what he wants in his mind, then, careful to keep close to the surface, ducks his head underwater. He pulls at the world around him, reaching past the thin tendrils of human-magic to the well of the ocean beneath, lets out an exploratory trill of <em>shapechangegrowbecome</em>, and starts to sing.</p><p>The trills spread out through the water, haunting and crooning as he weaves the sand and salt and sea into his spell. There’s no plants, but there’s algae and bacteria and a few tiny crustaceans hiding between the rocks, and that’s enough; he coaxes them into seaweed and seagrass, crabs and oysters and swarms of see-through shrimp. He can’t manage fish, they’re too complicated even with the sea’s magic behind him, but he pushes at the floor until it falls away like the edge of an ocean shelf, and then again at the sides until the room becomes a gaping cavern where the opposite wall is too far away to see.</p><p>It means he loses his footing but he barely notices Graves coming up to support him again; he’s had to lift his head out of the water to breathe, and in the air his trills shift higher pitched as he lifts the ceiling and stirs the air into a salty breeze. He takes sand from the floor now tens of metres below him and scatters it over the rocks to collect in the crevices between them, then again further back until it’s built into a beach with pebbles and broken shells and whip-like reeds to hold it all in place.</p><p>It’s more than he’s ever sung before, bigger than the currents he trills into existence for the dolphins to play in or the shells he makes when the hermit crabs need to move house, and by the time he’s done he’s exhausted, slumping against Graves’ chest in the water and trying ineffectively to wind his legs around his tail.</p><p>“There,” he says sleepily, resting his head on Graves’ shoulder. “<em>Now</em> you can properly swim.”</p><p>He feels more than hears Graves choke out a laugh. “Guppy,” he says wonderingly. “I think I know why Grindelwald wanted your voice.” He readjusts Newt in his arms so that he can keep him cradled close while his tail pushes them forwards with powerful strokes. “I don’t know if you gave him the wrong one on purpose or if you were just very lucky, but that’s some song you’ve managed to keep for yourself.”</p><p>“‘M not a guppy,” Newt mumbles around a yawn. It turns into a grumpy pout as Graves puts him on a rock while he hauls himself out and laboriously changes his tail back into legs, but smooths out quickly enough once he’s picked up again.</p><p>“Here,” Graves says, handing him Frank’s shell. “I don’t have enough hands to carry both of you, you’ll have to hold him.” The rocking motion of his steps as he walks feels like the waves tugging at the shallows, and if it weren’t for the discomfort of his wet clothes Newt would be asleep by the time he’s lowered carefully onto a bed.</p><p>“Sorry, it’ll be quick,” Graves warns, then passes his wand over in the gentlest drying spell he can manage that still prickles painfully at Newt’s skin. “Sorry,” he says again when Newt whines at the feeling. “Human magic is all I’ve got.”</p><p>“Human magic sucks,” Newt complains, interrupting himself with another yawn.</p><p>He thinks he hears Graves laugh again, but it’s too quiet, and he can’t be bothered to open his eyes to check. Transforming the whole cavern was <em>maybe</em> a touch ambitious of him, but. Graves’ll do better in it now, and that’s the important thing.</p><p>“He’s never going to let you go,” he thinks he hears Graves say, something bitter in his voice. “But if he gets you… Hell, Guppy. Do you even know how dangerous you are?”</p><p>Newt doesn’t answer, even with the wordless whistles he uses in place of talking. Graves tugs a quilt over him and relocates Frank to a more stable place on the bedside table. He holds the thunderbird’s assessing gaze for a long second then looks away, mouth twisting down guiltily.</p><p>“I’ll do what I can,” he promises in a low voice. “If I can’t get the portkey…” He trails off, reaching out to push the shell closed in lieu of finishing the sentence. Frank gives an irritated squawk, beating at the join with his wings. “I’ll do what I can,” he repeats, and turns off the light as he leaves.</p><p> </p><p>Newt sleeps in late the next morning, and Graves is already gone by the time he wakes up. He stretches, luxuriously slow, and runs his fingers over the soft fabric of the sheets in fascination.</p><p>He loves the sea, and this jaunt on land was only ever meant to be a brief one to deliver a lost creature home, but the human world is so <em>interesting. </em></p><p>Still, though, there’s only so long he can spend marvelling at the concept of pillows, and hunger drives him to push himself out of bed and explore. In the room, he finds another set of clothes neatly laid out, a glass of water, and Frank’s shell, carefully placed on the table where it isn't at risk of being knocked over.</p><p>The water is… confusing. There’s not enough for anything useful. He takes a mouthful of it experimentally because his throat is annoyingly dry, but it’s sweet fresh water and he spits it back out again with a disgusted grimace.</p><p>You can’t breathe fresh water. You shouldn’t even swim in it too long, it does horrible things to you. Graves is a salt water shark - he must be, his rock pool was salty - so he should know that, but the second tentative sip Newt takes is just as fresh as the first and he abandons the glass entirely.</p><p>His throat is still dry though.</p><p>Of the clothes, he swaps Jacob’s trousers for the ones Graves put out for him, but keeps the loose white shirt. He ignores completely the shoes and socks; the socks in particular have a thin veneer of human magic over them, sparking like a faint static shock, and he really doesn’t fancy walking on it all day.</p><p>Which is, in some ways, a shame; if he had put them on he’d’ve found that the static shocks were an acceptable price to pay for the numbing charm that would stop his feet feeling like they were being stabbed each time he let them touch the ground.</p><p>“Morning Frank,” he says once he’s as dressed as he’s going to be, retrieving the clam shell and cracking it open. He gets a grumpy warble in return as Frank settles himself firmly back into his wing-cocoon and refuses to wake up. “Well, ok,” he says, smiling amusedly and tucking the shell into his pocket. “I’ll try not to jostle you too much.”</p><p>What he can’t find in the room, which is a pain, is Jacob’s case with all the pastries in it. He must’ve left it down by the rock pool.</p><p>“Alrighty,” he says, psyching himself up for the journey. “Back to walking. I was planning to walk to Arizona, I can walk to the rock pool. Let’s go.”</p><p>Admittedly, he was planning to walk to Arizona before he knew <em>quite</em> how far it was, but the principle is the same.</p><p>He picks a random direction when he leaves the room and guesses that downstairs is the way to go. It’s not fast, but he discovers that he can sit and lower himself down the stairs with his arms to guide him which is ok. Jacob finds him at the bottom and immediately offers a shoulder for support, and that’s better.</p><p>“Graves said to let you sleep,” Jacob explained. “Something about magic being tiring - apparently I’m not allowed to let you do any more.”</p><p>“I’m not tired,” Newt denies immediately, wrinkling his nose.</p><p>“Not that I think it would be my place to stop you,” Jacob continues. “I mean, I’ve known about magic for a day now, but you’ve had it your whole life. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”</p><p>“Um, not really. I just sing, the sea does most of it.” They shuffle into the kitchen and Jacob leans over to help him into a chair. There’s a stack of papers by one of the other seats, forms half-filled out requesting another meeting for another loan consultation. Newt skips over them; he knows, in theory, what writing is but that doesn’t mean he can read it. Much more interesting is the pastry case propped neatly against the table leg on the floor, and he perks up when he spots it.</p><p>“Breakfast?”</p><p>Jacob follows his gaze. “Graves gave it me earlier. Which was kind of him, though he didn’t need to save the pastries - I can make more.”</p><p>“Breakfast,” Newt repeats insistently, reaching for the case and making hopeful eyes. “Break-fast. Food. For me. Please? <em>Croissant.</em>”</p><p>“You’re hungry?” Jacob guesses. “Oh, of course you’re hungry - I’m sorry I should’ve thought.” He looks round the room in distress, eyeing the spelled cold-cabinet warily and trying to guess by looking which of the cupboards would be safe to open. It just doesn’t feel right to help himself to someone else’s things, even if Graves had told him to make himself at home when he’d let him in that morning.</p><p>“They’re literally right there,” Newt says, leaning over the table and trying to see if he can reach them. He can’t, not without overbalancing his chair, but it’s only a few steps and with the table to brace against he could easily walk it.</p><p>“<em>Pastries</em>,” Jacob realises, flapping at him until he sits back in his seat. “You didn’t want those, they would’ve been stale by now. I threw them out.”</p><p>“But croissant,” Newt warbles sadly, his whistle fading into a despondent trill. He should’ve eaten them all last night. He didn’t realise they’d be gone if he didn’t.</p><p>“Well,” Jacob says, tilting his head consideringly. “I know Graves said to stay inside, but… If you’ve only got a few days, you should make the most of them. I promised you pierogi, didn’t I? And I found my babcia’s walking stick, so you might as well use it.”</p><p>He smiles, friendly-teeth and all, and Newt huffs out a delighted laugh and smiles back - and he even lets some of his own blunt teeth show in the grin.</p><p> </p><p>“What part,” Graves asks, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Of <em>stupidly dangerous</em> did either of you not understand?”</p><p>Jacob looks guilty and unsure, which is not a happy look and therefore not one he’s allowed to have. Newt, curled up next to him in his usual position with his feet tucked under and his head on Jacob’s shoulder, elbows him lightly in the side.</p><p>“Worrying never helped anyone,” he says to Graves, scrunching his nose in annoyance. “We had pierogi. Jacob showed me what ice cream was, even though it’s not summer. If we worried, I’d never have seen a park.”</p><p>“As enlightening as that was -”</p><p>And, because he’s <em>still</em> annoyed, Newt sticks his tongue out and follows it with a sharp trill of displeasure. It means <em>can’ttellmewhattodogotmyowntailtoswimwith</em>, which is, technically, a lie, but all trill language is approximate so it doesn’t matter.</p><p>Graves grinds his teeth together and drops dramatically back onto the other sofa. “A no-maj and a mer, hell’s teeth. Why did I ever expect them to be sensible.”</p><p>“Why would you expect us not to be?” Jacob counters, frowning as he stiffens slightly. “I can’t speak for mers, but I imagine they’re just as individual as us no-majs are.”</p><p>There’s a tense stand off, which Graves breaks by dipping his head in apology. “I’m sorry,” he says. “There are things neither of you understand - but it’s on me to explain.” He pushes himself to his feet, suddenly full of a restless need to put off the conversation, and directs himself to the cabinet in the corner. “Drink?” he offers. “I have coffee if you’d rather.”</p><p>“Ah, no, I’m all good thanks.”</p><p>For his part, Newt ignores the question. Eating, he likes, but drinking is something he’s not yet got used to. He frowns at the water glass Graves puts down in front of him.</p><p>“If it’s fresh again, I won’t like it,” he says, sniffing at it cautiously. It is fresh. He pulls a face and puts it aside.</p><p>“You need it,” Graves says, lifting his own tumbler to gesture at Newt’s. “I know it’s weird, but you’re human now. Your throat probably hurts enough already, the water will stop it being so dry.”</p><p>“But it’s <em>fresh</em>.” This solid argument, however, completely fails to sway Graves, and Newt only manages to hold his stare for a few long seconds before he ungracefully gives in. His throat, admittedly, has been feeling rough and sore all day. The ice cream had helped. The water, when he chokes it down, does not feel like it will, but he trusts Graves not to poison him so he sticks with it.</p><p>“Mer magic,” Graves says, turning back to the explanation. “Where to start.” He taps his fingers in an arrhythmic pattern, then shakes himself out of his memories. “The sea is big,” he goes for. “Human magic is small. They power everything themselves, and they have to <em>keep</em> powering it or their magic fails. It has its benefits, any kind of magic does, but even all the wizards in New York couldn’t achieve what Newt could do in one evening of singing.”</p><p>Newt blinks, taken aback. Was Graves referring to the cave? He made it a bit bigger and gave it some plants and crustaceans, that’s all.</p><p>“Mers don’t power anything. Nor do most other creatures; they <em>channel</em> magic rather than creating it. Dragons channel fire, thunderbirds channel wind, and mermaids,” he nods at Newt, “channel the sea. Some of them do; it’s not a universal talent.”</p><p>“Dragons,” Jacob repeats, eyes lighting up in wonder. “Dragons and mermaids. I’m so glad they’re real.”</p><p>“The sea is the largest individual power source in the world,” Graves continues. “We live on an ocean planet. It’s deeper than the mountains, wider than any forest - the sky’s larger, but air is so much lighter than water it can’t compete. The earth’s core, maybe, though I don’t know of any creature able to tap into it. In terms of sheer magical potential there is <em>nothing</em> so tempting to a witch or wizard as a mer with a good voice.”</p><p>There’s a pause. It’s… Newt never really thought about the spells he uses. They’re just fun. Little things to amuse the various creatures he meets, help them out where they need it. His songs are innocent things, and somehow they feel sullied by people wanting them for their power.</p><p>“When you say voice,” Jacob begins slowly. “You mean like what the sea witch took from him?”</p><p>“Tried to take from him,” Graves corrects. “Grindelwald took his words, but our guppy still has his magic. For another day, at least.”</p><p>“But Grindelwald already has magic,” Newt protests. He gets, now, why it was potentially reckless to wander out into a city clearly full of magical humans, but he still hasn’t got his head around Grindelwald deceiving him. “Why would he need mine? He can already do things I can’t do - that’s why I went to him for help in the first place.”</p><p>“Um,” Jacob says, flicking his gaze awkwardly to Graves and getting no help from that quarter. “Buddy, we, um, didn’t quite catch that.”</p><p>Newt opens his mouth, tries to think of a way to phrase it so the whistles would convey his meaning, discards that and tries to think of a way to trill it, then gives up and sinks back into the sofa with his arms crossed in defeat.</p><p>“I hate this,” he mutters. It comes out as a disgruntled wheeze. Of course it does. Even Jacob pulling a sad face at him in sympathy and turning slightly to provide a better cushion for leaning against doesn’t do much to improve things.</p><p>“On a more positive note,” Graves says, spotting the need for a subject change. “We have a confirmed portkey to Phoenix tomorrow and a contact waiting there who can take us to a thunderbird canyon.” He grins; unlike Jacob, he hasn’t quite mastered showing teeth without it being threatening, but it comes across as more anticipatory than anything else. Newt reminds himself firmly that he’s done with judging him for being a shark, and offers his own hesitant grin in return.</p><p>“You hear that, Frank?” he says, slipping a hand into his pocket and running a finger over the shell. “Home. Put this whole thing behind you, and then I’ll go back to the sea and leave walking on glass to the humans.”</p><p>It does less to lighten his mode than he thought it would though, and as Jacob and Graves excitedly and calmly (respectively) hash out the details of the plan, he tunes them out and tries to persuade himself that he’s looking forward to having a tail again.</p><p>Who needs manatee-friends, or countless new creatures, or dumplings and suitcases of pastries? The sea has much more to offer. More swimming space than Graves’ pool, for one, and more fish, even if it doesn’t come included with a shark to hold him up so he doesn’t drown. Or carry him to bed when he’s tired. Or - but if Newt had his tail back, he wouldn’t be drowning, would he, and mermaids don’t sleep in beds so there’s no need to carry anyone anywhere. So. There.</p><p>He buries himself further into Jacob’s side and curls around Frank’s shell, and pretends that he’s succeeding at cheering himself up.</p><p> </p><p>The plan, in the end, is simple. The portkey will be ready in the afternoon, with just enough time before the sun sets. It’s the earliest Graves could get it; even departmental heads pulling favours can only make bureaucracy move so fast. Graves and Jacob will collect it so that both can be attuned to the portkey and activate it; Jacob is not, under any circumstances, to admit to being a no-maj. Or, preferably, to admit to anything at all.</p><p>Newt will stay in the house, with free reign of the rock pool and garden so long as he promises not to swim out too deep now that it’s not shallow enough to stand in. When Graves and Jacob get back from MACUSA, the three of them will activate the portkey and travel to Arizona.</p><p>No one except Newt is clear exactly on how the curse will end, and it’s not a detail he can easily share with them so from there the plan devolves more into trial and error. The main thrust of it though is that Graves’ contact will take them to a suitable place to release the thunderbird, and they’ll stay there as long as they need to to make sure that the curse is broken and Newt and Frank are both free. On the off chance that Newt turns back into a mermaid and is stranded in the Arizona desert with no legs and a neck-full of gills, Jacob will activate the return portkey to bring them back to the beach, close enough for Newt to reach the sea without leaving Jacob drowning in the middle of the ocean.</p><p>Graves on the other hand has to stay for at least another day to complete a series of boring but necessary meetings that were the only reason he theoretically was given the portkey in the first place. They haven’t yet worked out how he’ll get back if Jacob has to activate the portkey before then, but that’s part of the fun of making things up as you go along.</p><p>But Graves getting home isn’t for Newt to worry about; his job, once the portkey brings him home, is to get back to the water with no one seeing him or his shiny golden tail, and then - and this bit is important - to never make deals with a sea witch ever again.</p><p>“He could still not have known where Arizona was,” Newt complains. “You don’t <em>know</em> he’s evil. Maybe he thought Jacob’s train would be fast enough.”</p><p>“I will take that as an acknowledgement of how stupid it would be to seek out someone who tried to enslave you and assume that you’re promising to stay out of his way,” Graves says dryly.</p><p>Newt sniffs. “If you want to.”</p><p>So: that’s the plan. Newt’s part of it involves spending most of his third and final day on land stuck in Graves’ house, where it’s safe, on his own while Jacob and Graves swan off to fetch the magic item that will save him.</p><p>“Well, not quite on my own,” he amends, tilting Frank’s shell up. “I’ve still got you, right?”</p><p>Frank warbles a reply, butting his head against Newt’s fingers and demanding better scritches.</p><p>“And it’s not that bad. Graves said I could go anywhere in the house. There’s loads of things to look at.”</p><p>He kicks his feet lazily in the rockpool, water soaking up the fabric of his trousers and making it cling unpleasantly round his shins. The ceiling is glowing with the same soft blue as before, and now that the cavern’s so much bigger than it was it gives the whole place an eerie stillness. The sound of water splashing around his ankles echoes, and one of the little crabs is crawling determinedly over the rocks to chase the source of the noise.</p><p>Newt leans back and flumps down on the sand. “I’m bored,” he complains. “How can the land be so big and so full of interesting things but also be so <em>netty</em>?”</p><p>Netty might not be the right word, but stuck in a net is the best way to describe how he feels. He’s trapped and confined; going anywhere is an agonisingly slow process, and even if he could walk normally he’d still be <em>walking</em>. It takes forever and it only goes along the ground. He’s made for <em>swimming</em> damnit, he’d rather go up in the air with Frank and explore the world in a three dimensional way like any <em>normal</em> person would.</p><p>“How can Graves stand it? If he can get his tail back and he cares enough about swimming to make this mini-sea, why doesn’t he just go back to the <em>real</em> sea? Why did he want legs in the first place?”</p><p>He frowns, turning it over in his head. Graves is a shark, yes, and Newt’s first reaction was to be scared of him - but he’s not actually scary. Not like sharks in the stories are. With his sharp angles and dark tail he’s more… Something else. Something that still makes Newt aware of him, still makes his heart pick up, but not from fear.</p><p>He doesn’t think, anymore, that Graves left the sea because people were afraid of him. Graves doesn’t seem the sort to be that bothered by what people think, and he’s shown no great attachment to the humans he’s living amongst now. If anything, he has a worse opinion of them that Newt does. But, Newt’s never come across a human trying to steal mer magic. He didn’t even know magic <em>could</em> be stolen.</p><p>What would it be like, he wonders, to be a mermaid cut off from the sea?</p><p>He shivers, letting out a high trill of distress at the thought. It’s echoed a second later, a low rumbling hum of comfort and curiosity that seems to roll through the still rockpool. Newt frowns, sitting up and peering out over the surface. “Graves?”</p><p>No answer. Well, not surprising - the voiceless whistles wouldn’t travel well underwater, which is where it sounds like Graves is. He carefully puts Frank aside and scoots forward until he can stick his head under. “Graves?” he asks again, then trills it - <em>wherewherewherehereiamwhereareyou</em> - peering through the dark water to try and spot him.</p><p>The rumble-hum comes back, a confident, languid purr (<em>foundyoustayputlittlefish)</em> and he sees the vague silhouette of Graves’ mer form, long tail undulating slowly in the water behind him as he swims up towards the edge.</p><p>“There you are,” Graves says when he breaks the surface, lips curling up into a smile. It shows just the slightest hint of sharp teeth in a way that Newt wants to find threatening, but he’s spent enough time around Jacob now to know that humans think teeth are friendly. He’s not going to begrudge Graves picking up the habit.</p><p>“You said I could go anywhere,” he says instead. “I’m still in the house, it’s fine. I wasn’t even trying to swim, see - I just wanted to check on the spells.”</p><p>Graves raises an eyebrow. “They’re impressive,” he says, turning to take in the cavern. Newt can’t help but be proud, even as he ducks his head to hide it. “You brought so much of the sea in here… It’s practically part of it.” He quirks his lips, as though amused at a private joke. “You should be careful; you made it go so deep down, you never know what could swim through from the ocean.”</p><p>Newt shrugs, not worried - very little can threaten a shark, and he trusts Graves to keep him safe. “You needed space.” He looks round again, frowning unhappily as he thinks about feeling trapped on land and the way the ceiling of the room is covered in rocks that, even if they glow, are nothing like the sky. “You need more than this.”</p><p>Graves doesn’t answer at first, and when Newt looks back at him curiously his gaze is hot and possessive enough that Newt looks down again on instinct. He’s not afraid of sharks, he reminds himself, but there’s <em>something </em>about being the sole focus of such predatory attention that still makes his heart race.</p><p>“Come with me,” Graves says eventually, his words still tinged with the coaxing hum he uses in place of trills. He pulls himself out on the rocks, swapping his tail for legs in the same smooth motion and emerging to stand, fully clothed and dry, next to Newt. He holds out a hand and tugs Newt to his feet almost before Newt’s feet are ready to hold him, then shifts his grip to wrap around Newt’s waist. Newt barely has chance to collect Frank’s shell before he’s being lifted in a bridal carry. “I want to show you something.”</p><p>“Show me what?” Newt asks, then remembers he can’t talk and makes a questioning trill instead.</p><p><em>Patience</em>, Graves rumbles back. <em>You’llseepatiencethehuntisn’toveryet</em>.</p><p>They leave the house by the front door, the wards sparking angrily against Newt’s skin as he passes through them. If Graves feels them he gives no sign of it; maybe it’s just Newt who’s so sensitive to human magic, or maybe Graves is used to the discomfort by now.</p><p>“Hold on,” Graves says, arms pressing Newt tighter against his chest, then with a sudden pressure like being caught in the crash of a towering wave and spun out dazed and fighting to breathe, they’re on the beach.</p><p>“How,” he gasps, curling closer and trying to wrap his legs around Graves’ hip. It doesn’t work - he has entirely too few bones in his legs for them to bend the way a tail should - but he’s distracted by the waves and doesn’t notice. It’s afternoon, and though the sun isn’t visible behind the clouds it can’t be too far off sunset. It’s December, sunset is hardly late at this time of year.</p><p>The other part of it being December is that on a cloudy day, the beach is pretty much empty. There are a few people along the wooden walkway further up the beach - one pair are taking their goodboy for a walk, Newt notices, and spends a second wondering if the rays would chase shells the way the goodboy chases sticks - but not many.</p><p>“Where’s Jacob?” he asks, frowning. Graves cocks his head blankly, and Newt huffs and lifts Frank’s shell. “Jacob’s coming with us to take Frank home. The portkey, to Arizona. Where is he?”</p><p>“Later,” Graves says. “There’s time. I wanted to show you something first.” He resettles Newt more firmly in his hold, and starts walking towards the sea.</p><p>“But -”</p><p>“Later, Newt,” Graves says, the hum behind his words rumbling louder in warning. It’s a smooth sound, low and rich, balanced on that fine line between dangerous and soothing. It’s very little like the jagged, broken attempt at comfort Graves had offered back in the holding cell. With Newt as close as he is to Graves’ chest he should feel it vibrating through his ribcage, but he doesn’t; the little spiral seashell on the cord around Graves’ neck, on the other hand, almost seems to pulse in time with the insistent sound.</p><p>“Graves,” Newt says, leaning back unsurely. The sea is up to Graves’ knees now, rapidly rising to his waist and he hasn’t slowed his steady walk forwards. It brushes against Newt’s ankles and Newt’s breath hitches at the feel of it as it seems almost to reach up to him.</p><p>“You see?” Graves purrs, pushing off from the sandy bottom and turning so that the shifting of his muscles doesn’t dislodge Newt as his tail forms. “You see, Newt?” he repeats, revelling in the way the sea coils eagerly around them. “It loves you. It would do anything for you, follow any command, and all you have to do is sing.”</p><p>“I don’t want to command it,” Newt protests. “I want to go back to land. Please.” They’re now too far out for him to stand and he twists anxiously in Graves’ hold, trying to get free. He knows, intellectually, that he’ll drown without his gills, but - Graves is wrong. Something’s wrong with him. “We have to get Frank to -”</p><p>“<em>Guppy!</em>”</p><p>Newt jerks, spinning to look back at the shore with wide eyes. Graves is standing at the very edge of the water, pacing restlessly to keep out of reach of the waves. Jacob is stumbling to his feet next to him and trying to shake his head clear of the nausea of side-along apparition.</p><p>The Graves holding him growls, claws digging in tighter. He coils his tail in preparation to dive and Newt sucks in as big a lungful of air as he can in terror, but they’re halted by a shimmering barrier that sparks fitfully with Graves’ human magic.</p><p>Mer-Graves slams his tail against it, but it holds. He snarls, the rumble-hum rising to a shrieking threat that sets the shell necklace shaking with the force of it. Newt’s practically forgotten, and he fights to keep his head above the surface without drawing too much attention to himself.</p><p>“Let him go, Grindelwald,” human-Graves on the shore demands, voice low and angry and his wand held up with a spell crackling at the tip. Mer-Graves - Grindelwald - shoots him a vicious glare, then composes himself into a taunting smirk.</p><p>“My own magic, Percival?” he purrs. “<em>That’s</em> what you’re using against me? I’d stay to appreciate the irony, but I’ve better places to be.” His face seems to ripple, and the image of Graves fades away. The dark scales and sharp-angled fins are replaced with bleached white, banded with dark red and surrounded by a fan of spines in place of fins. The red is faded in places, washed a sickly pink like old scar tissue, and the spines curve round Newt and hover scant inches from his skin.</p><p>Newt doesn’t move. Lionfish spines are venomous.</p><p>“Let him go,” Graves repeats. “You know you can’t get past my wards.”</p><p>“<em>My</em> wards,” Grindelwald corrects, flicking his tail at them in annoyance. “But I don’t have to, do I? I just have to keep him here.” He doesn’t even look at Newt as he says it, but the challenge in his grin is possessive. “You know how it goes, Percival. Until the sun sets on the third day… If you’re going to play the hero, you haven’t got long left.”</p><p>“I’ll distract him,” Jacob says, trousers rolled up above his knees as he starts wading in. “You swim round -”</p><p>“I can’t,” Graves snarls. He paces again, trapped at the edge of the waves.</p><p>“Ok,” Jacob agrees easily, and strips off his jacket. “You distract him then, I’ll swim round -”</p><p>Grindelwald wrinkles his face in a disgusted sneer. “A muggle? Oh, please do.”</p><p>Newt’s mind is racing, even as he keeps still. Grindelwald’s attention is focussed entirely on Graves and Jacob and the way Graves strains against whatever’s keeping him trapped on land, magic sparking fitfully from the end of his wand.</p><p>Or, if Grindelwald is to be believed, from <em>Grindelwald’s</em> wand. Human magic. Graves uses human magic and he can’t sing, his hum is broken; Grindelwald uses Graves’ voice and tried to take Newt’s because it’s where his magic is.</p><p>Grindelwald is a lionfish. An invasive species. Graves hates humans because they steal mer magic. Newt has very little time left until his contract runs out and he doesn’t know what Graves agreed to or how long ago, but no mer should be cut off from the sea.</p><p>He moves before he can allow himself to second guess, snatching at the seashell necklace with one hand while he digs the other into Grindelwald’s gills. “Graves!” he yells, a piercing whistle that makes Grindelwald rear back with a hiss. He wraps the cord around Frank’s clam and throws them both, managing to stay above the surface just long enough to see Jacob sidestepping through the shallows to catch them. “Graves, the shell, your voice is in the -”</p><p>He’s cut off, dragged underwater and choking on a mouthful of salt. There’s a sharp jab on his hip and he kicks frantically at the water to avoid it, but his clothes and unfamiliar limbs slow him down and by the time he’s wrestled himself free of Grindelwald’s spines he’s already been stung.</p><p>It starts slowly. It feels like a sharp pinch, someone digging their claws in, a fold of skin caught between two rocks. Then it grows, incessant and unrelenting; it throbs, the sharp pinch turning into teeth that grind down until they hit bone and keep on grinding. Newt presses down on it as though pressure will help, and when it doesn’t he contorts himself, trying to bend away from the pain. He takes more mouthfuls of water, spitting them out in frustration when he doesn’t have gills to pass them over and tries desperately to remember where the air is so he can breathe.</p><p>Then - hands, closing round his shoulders, pulling him insistently up. He fights, squirming backwards and ripping the shirt over his head to get free of it, but the hands come back; they hook around his now bare chest and drag him to the surface.</p><p>“Fuck’s sake, Guppy,” Graves snarls at him. “Breathe!”</p><p>“Hurts,” he chokes out, coughing sea water out of his lungs. “Hurts, he stung me, it <em>hurts</em>.”</p><p>“You’re fine, I’m not going to let you drown -”</p><p>“<em>Hurts!</em>” he repeats, shifting into a frantic trill because he’s so damn <em>sick</em> of not being understood, he doesn’t know what fire is but his hip is <em>burning </em>and lionfish venom kills, he’d never thought that Grindelwald would attack him but he’s always known that lionfish were more dangerous than sharks are.</p><p>Graves swears, but when he hums it’s low and steady, with none of the brokenness he’d had before. <em>Calm</em>, it says, and <em>i'vegotyou, </em>and <em>you’llgrowmoreteethandsurviveagain.</em></p><p>“My teeth aren’t the problem,” Newt grinds out, but he does his best to hold still. There’s a numbness spreading from where Graves’ hand is holding him, pulsing in waves with the throbbing pain.</p><p>“I’m not the best healer,” Graves says. “But the sea likes you. You need to sing.”</p><p>“I need,” Newt manages, whistle-wheeze wavering as he fights to keep it steady, “To get rid of these legs and get my tail back.”</p><p>“Guppy. <em>Sing.</em>”</p><p>There aren’t exactly trills for <em>please amputate these limbs that I should never have had in the first place because they’re trying to kill me,</em> but Newt does his best. The waves of numbness and pain slow, dragging like a current fighting the incoming tide. He’s vaguely aware of Graves pushing them towards the shore until he can stand again, his feet in the sand and the water up to his waist with Graves’ dark tail settling round him in a protective curl.</p><p>“Ok?” Graves asks when Newt’s song fades out. He pauses before he nods; the pain isn’t gone, and his skin will probably be swollen and red in the morning, but it doesn’t feel like he’s going to die anymore. He can think again, at least, and he uses the return of his thoughts to notice that Graves is in the sea and has his voice back and Grindelwald, a brief check of the shore confirms, is standing on the beach with Graves’ wand in his hand, conjuring a pair of boots to go over his feet and trying to hide his irritation behind a veneer of superiority.</p><p>“He has legs,” Newt says. It’s not the most intelligent thing he’s ever said, but. It’s true. “That’s what your contract was? He took your sea magic and your tail, you got his human magic and his legs?”</p><p>“Close enough,” Grindelwald drawls, and Newt starts. He’s not used to being answered when he asks questions. “Not the best deal I’ve ever made, but for a first foray into contracts it served me well enough. I’ve got better at the small print since then.”</p><p>“You understand him?” Graves asks.</p><p>Grindelwald raises a mocking eyebrow. “I have his voice. Not the one I wanted, but I’ve still got it.” He smiles, lazy and sharp. “But like I said, I got better at contracts. You can’t break his by stamping on it, Percival. What are you going to do? A few minutes left and he’ll get his tail back, and when he does he and his sea magic will be mine. What tail should I give myself this time? I liked being venomous. Then again, I’ve heard that orca eat sharks if given the chance. Your livers, apparently, are a particular delicacy.”</p><p>Newt shudders, horrified. He still doesn’t think his magic is particularly powerful, but the way Grindelwald talks about it - about <em>him</em> - he should never have left the house. He should’ve known, somehow, that that wasn’t Graves; if he’d just stayed by the rockpool he’d be in Arizona by now and Frank would be safe. Instead, Frank’s going to be swallowed by a clam shell. Will Grindelwald bother following through with having the shell eat Newt as well, or seeing as Newt is right here will he just take him and dive?</p><p>“Graves,” he says, digging his fingers into Graves’ shoulders for support. “I don’t know what to do.”</p><p>Graves flicks a glance to him, eyes dark and unreadable, then looks away.</p><p>“Break the contract,” he says to Grindelwald.</p><p>“<em>Break</em> it?” Grindelwald repeats, incredulous. “What makes you think you have anything to bargain with?”</p><p>“I have enough time,” Graves replies, flat and unyielding. Newt tries to read what he’s planning from his face, but it doesn’t give anything away. “Break the contract.” He pulls on Newt’s arm, a gentle but insistent pressure, and Newt obliges by ducking down until the water’s up to his chin. It’s an awkward position, half-crouched half-kneeling with his head tilted back to keep his face out the water, and Graves’ tail coils tighter around him to keep him upright.</p><p>Grindelwald watches with a face made brittle with anger. “You dare,” he hisses, and Graves answers by moving one of his hands to Newt’s shoulder, claws resting against his pulse in the side of his neck.</p><p>“Graves?” he asks uneasily. He’s pretty sure this is the real Graves, but the position is not a particularly comforting one. He shifts, and Graves’ tail tenses, pinning him in place. “Graves, what…?”</p><p>Graves looks down at him again, briefly, and when he looks away bitter guilt flashes across his face. “Break. The contract.”</p><p>“And what?” Grindelwald spits. “You’ll track down every mermaid with the power I <em>deserve</em>, and you’ll kill them all before I find them?”</p><p>“You can look,” Graves says, his voice still heartbreakingly steady. “You won’t find any others like him. <em>Break it.</em>”</p><p>“<em>No.</em>” Grindelwald slashes his hand forwards, spell flying from his wand in a jagged bolt of green - Graves barks a single, rough command and a sudden wave surges to block it.</p><p>“Don’t dismiss me,” he says lowly. “I’m not as strong as he is, but there was a reason you wanted my magic. You can’t talk your way out of this one Grindelwald. The sun’s almost set. Break. The. Contract.”</p><p>There’s a tense silence. Newt’s throat is blocked by what feels like a solid lump, and it’s interfering with his breathing.</p><p>He should never have trusted a shark, he thinks, and it hurts because he <em>had</em> trusted Graves. More than trusted Graves, he’d - he’d thought -</p><p>Before that though, he should never have trusted a lionfish. Grindelwald’s interest in him, the slow patience he’d had in building their friendship, the way he’d laughed indulgently when Newt showed him his silly little spells - and Newt was little more to him than a different kind of wand.</p><p>No, lionfish couldn’t help being venomous. And it wasn’t their fault they were an invasive species; that was humans, bringing them where they weren’t meant to be. Grindelwald wasn’t a lionfish. He was <em>human.</em> Newt understands, now, why Graves tried so hard to keep creatures out of New York. Humans were threats, and the only way to stay safe was to stay away.</p><p>“No,” Grindelwald says, relaxing his stance into his former lazy arrogance. “Kill him.”</p><p>Graves growls and tenses his grip. Newt stares bleakly out to sea, then closes his eyes.</p><p>“I lose him if I break the contract,” Grindelwald continues mercilessly. “I also lose him if he dies. If I can’t have him, neither can you. Rip his throat out, Percival. Make him bleed. Because if you don’t, then in a few very short minutes I promise you I will.”</p><p>There’s a dark hatred to his words that makes Newt flinch back with a whimper, even though he’s still keeping his eyes stubbornly closed, and Graves rumbles a purr before he catches himself and stops.</p><p><em>I’ll kill it,</em> the purr says. <em>Don’t be afraid,</em> it says. <em>I’ll eat the world to keep you safe.</em></p><p>“What,” Newt squeaks, eyes flying open. “Graves, what -” The sun sets; he cuts himself off with a cry and spasms violently enough that he rips himself out of Graves’ grip and goes underwater. His skin ripples and burns, like the lionfish sting but <em>worse</em>, and he fights with the pants as they scrape against the suddenly sensitive skin of his legs. He feels Graves lifting him up to breathe again, saying something with a frantic urgency that Newt can’t focus on enough to catch the meaning of - then his <em>neck</em>, his, his <em>gills</em> and he twists frantically free to get back underwater.</p><p>The first mouthful of sea over his gills is heaven<em>.</em></p><p>The second, the third - he’ll never stop breathing again, not as long as he lives. And his <em>fins.</em> It’s like getting another sense back, being able to feel the vibrations in the water as Graves summons a wave again to block another of Grindelwald’s spells. Newt pushes himself off the sandy floor, coiling through the water with a flick of his tail and barely holding back a delighted laugh as the light from the sunset reflects gold off his scales. He’s got his <em>tail</em> back. The three days are up, no more land-walking for him, it’s swimming all the way now -</p><p>His contract’s up.</p><p>He judders to a halt with a shocked flare of his gills. <em>His contract’s up.</em> He belongs to Grindelwald. All his magic, his songs - he belongs to Grindelwald.</p><p>He reaches out his hands, passing them through the current and feeling the sea tug at the webbing between his fingers. “I don’t want to, though,” he says in a small voice. It comes out as a whistle, except now that he’s underwater he can hear more pitches and tones to it than he could on land. Grindelwald still has his voice, then.</p><p>Another crash of spell against wave reminds him that there’s currently a battle going on, and he darts up to the surface to look. Grindelwald’s face is twisted in fury, teeth bared as he jabs his wand forward again and again, trying to overwhelm Graves with a barrage of attacks. Graves is blocking, but he’s been driven so far into the shallows that he’s in danger of beaching himself and is running out of water to shield himself with. He doesn’t send any of his own attacks back - does he not have the chance, or is that not how his magic works? It’s human magic that’s versatile enough to do anything, mers tend to have a few things they’re good at and just stick with that. Like Newt, he’s only good at changing the environment, so yes he can grow Graves’ rock pool to a miniature ocean but right here that’s not the most <em>useful</em> of things -</p><p>Grindelwald summons the earth beneath the sand, raising it in a platform that Graves can’t escape from in time. Newt has to take the risk. He doesn’t know if his magic can do it, but he healed where Grindelwald stung him, so maybe - and he doesn’t know if his magic is <em>his</em> anymore but Grindelwald doesn’t seem to be using it so he has to <em>try -</em></p><p>He dips below water to pass another mouthful of oxygen over his gills, then thinks of Frank and the way Newt made him a breeze for his clamshell, and sings. <em>Storm,</em> he trills. <em>Ship wrecker, whale killer. Waves that break rocks that pound against the shore.</em> His trills shift lower; he pulls, and the ocean moves.</p><p>“Guppy,” Graves chokes out, fighting against the rising water to reach him. On the beach, Grindelwald is slashing his wand down and yelling something incomprehensible, but if he has any control over Newt, he’s failing to use it.</p><p>
  <em>Rip currents and ocean vents. Venomous stings and teeth and tentacles that never let go. Tidal bores and tsunamis and you are small, you are so very small and your bones are barely more than a grain of sand.</em>
</p><p>“Guppy, stop,” Graves says, reaching out a hand and trying to pull Newt away. Newt doesn’t move. Only the moon can pull the sea. “<em>Please</em>. You pushed yourself too far when you made my damn pool, if you don’t stop now you’ll - <em>Guppy</em>, damnit, listen to me.”</p><p>The waves crash over Grindelwald’s head and he fights them back, but he is nothing. Insignificant. One little creature that thought it could tame the sea; Newt sings crabs and shrimps into existence, he could sing humans out of it if he wanted. On the shore beyond the beach is a city and in the city are wizards and they are a threat because they want and want and want and if they get close enough they take, but they are all of them so <em>small.</em> How could one little creature ever hope to stand against the sea?</p><p>“Guppy,” Graves pleads. Newt is clinging onto him again, bracing against him to stop himself from drowning - except it’s the other way round now. He needs to be underwater to breathe, but he needs to be above water for the song he’s pulling into existence, and his gills are dry. His gills are - he just got them back, and now they’re killing him. He’s killing him. He needs to stop, and the song stutters and misses a beat and Grindelwald forces the waves away with violent victory, but if he stops then all the power he’d just tried to chanel would be Grindelwald’s and Newt can’t let that happen -</p><p>Graves rolls, using his larger body to knock Newt underwater. The sea floods over his gills and he chokes, pulling in greedy mouthfuls so fast he can barely keep up with them. He feels - drained, worse than drained, every muscle hurts and his bones are heavy with exhaustion. He can still feel the sea, just on the edge of him, so big it dwarfs him. He’s never been afraid of it before but he can’t stop himself flinching back.</p><p>“Never,” he swears. “Never again, no. I use my spells for <em>silly little things</em> that’s not - I’m not - <em>no.</em>” He pants, and there must still be a remnant of human in him because his eyes sting with tears even though mermaid eyes are used to salt water.</p><p>By the shore, Grindelwald laughs. “You might not be,” he says, and he sounds <em>exhilarated</em>, “But Newt, I certainly am. You and me, we’re going to change the world.”</p><p>“Why,” Jacob asks, sounding out of breath and annoyed, “Does no one ever ask him what <em>he</em> wants to do, huh?”</p><p>Newt surfaces, eyes wide with panic. Jacob - he’d forgotten <em>Jacob -</em></p><p>“For a muggle, you’re infuriatingly persistent,” Grindelwald says, lips pursed in distaste. Jacob is approaching at a dogged jog, sleeves rolled up, appearance windswept and askew. “What could you possible hope to achieve against -”</p><p>With a piercing cry, Frank drops out the sky. He’s full size, free of his clam shell, glorious and huge and pissed off. His talons sink into Grindelwald’s shoulders and with a single six-fold beat of his wings, he’s airborne again.</p><p>Jacob doubles over, gulping for breath in relief. “That,” he says, waving a hand somewhere in the direction Frank’s carrying Grindelwald out to sea. “Ow. <em>Ow </em>cramp, cramp, I’m made for <em>bread</em> Kowalski’s don’t run unless people are shooting at us<em>.</em>”</p><p>“Jacob?” Newt says, baffled. He tries to push off and swim towards him, but his muscles respond like a ship’s anchor and he awkwardly flops until Graves supports him again. “I swear I can swim,” Newt grumps. Graves just raises an amused eyebrow and takes them both in to the beach.</p><p>“What happened?” he asks when they get there, propping Newt up against the sand. “How did you get the thunderbird free?”</p><p>“I took him to Arizona,” Jacob says, arms above his head as he stretches out the stitch in his side. “On the magic key bus. Your friend was a bit surprised when I turned up without you, but I told her I was your brother and you had the flu and couldn’t come. I think she believed me.”</p><p>“My… brother,” Graves repeats unsurely. “Your name is Kowalski.”</p><p>“I told her I got married. But! She took me to this valley, and then I wasn’t sure what to do but the sun set and he just sort of,” he makes a vague <em>poof</em> motion with his hands, “jumped out and the shell disappeared, so I figured I should come back and see how you were getting on. Except he wouldn’t let me go without him, so I brought both of us back - I figure you can get another key bus, right? - except we were on the wrong part of the beach, then this massive <em>storm</em> happened, did you see that? So sorry we were a bit late but then we got here and I distracted him and the bird got him from above and yeah.” He smiles, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. “That’s what we did. And you both got your tails back! That’s great!” He falters. “That is, great, right?”</p><p>“Jacob,” Newt says, as sincerely as he can without words, “I want you to know that I’m sorry for letting myself think all humans were bad. You are perfect, I love you, and if there are other humans like you then I love them too.”</p><p>“Ah,” Jacob says, not understanding any of it. “Glad everything’s sorted then. I wasn’t sure if the curse would break without you there, but it seems to have gone well.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Graves says, bitter with guilt. He looks away, awkwardly refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. “Yeah, it went well.”</p><p>Newt… gets it. Sort of. His song scared <em>him</em>, and he was the one singing it; the idea of Grindelwald having that sort of power… Plus, there’s more to Graves’ history with Grindelwald than just a trade, he’s sure of it. Graves didn’t want to hurt him, and he doesn’t feel like the sort to do things rashly - and, when Grindelwald called his bluff, Graves <em>hadn’t </em>hurt him. Had, in fact, tried to comfort him, and then fought to keep Newt safe while he changed back into a mermaid.</p><p>As far as Newt’s concerned, Graves doesn’t need to feel guilty. What he does need to do is not leave, particularly because Newt’s exhaustion is catching up to him and he’s going to pass out soon.</p><p>“You’re not allowed to swim off and be sad,” he says as firmly as he can. The sand is surprisingly comfy. It feels a lot better when it’s not studded with shards of broken glass for him to walk on, even if the glass only existed in Newt’s feet at the time. Graves doesn’t appear to have got the message, so he rolls his eyes. “Stay,” he trills, and emphasises his point by winding their tails together the way he’s been trying to do for the past three days.</p><p>It works this time. Because <em>tail.</em> So much superior to legs.</p><p>“I - don’t -” Graves says, reeling back with wide eyes. Newt repeats his trill more firmly this time, and Graves’ cheeks darken in a blue-grey blush.</p><p>Newt runs what he just said through his mind. He <em>thought</em> he said <em>stay with me because the world is better when you’re here</em> and he guesses, maybe, that that’s another local saying and could mean something different to Graves? His brain is too tired to work it out.</p><p>“But,” Graves says, and hesitates, not sure how to finish that sentence.</p><p>“Buddy,” Jacob says dryly. “I don’t speak song, but even I got that one. If I were you I’d take the hint.”</p><p>Graves looks down at where Newt is inching his way closer along the sand, attempting to be subtle in only the way someone with a shiny gold tail and far too expressive fins couldn’t be. He blinks, and when Newt catches him staring and pouts at him, he offers a hesitant, unsure smile in return.</p><p>“Good,” Newt says. “Now carry me. I’m sleepy.”</p><p>“Um,” Graves answers, but if he’s honest, he understood the meaning of that as well. Of all the potential outcomes of the fear that’s been dogging at his heels since he realised Grindelwald was back in his life, even if only by proxy, this was not one of them. But… he’s got his tail back. For good, this time, not just the poor imitation he’s been spelling for himself. Grindelwald’s gone. Wherever Frank’s taken him, a thunderbird isn’t going to have taken kindly to someone attacking his mer. And Newt isn’t afraid of him. Doesn’t blame him. Could call the whole ocean down on his head if he wanted to, but is instead choosing to bury his way under one of Graves’ fins and use it as a blanket.</p><p>“Ok,” he says. “Ok. I can stay.”</p><p> </p><p>In the spring, when the paperwork’s sorted, Jacob moves into Graves’ house. It’s a bit big for him, really, and very striking and dark, but it’s nothing a bit of cheerful clutter and some fresh baked bread won’t fix.</p><p>“Are you really his brother?” Tina asks skeptically. She’s helping him file the last few of the forms he needs; apparently being an unregistered squib who’d been living as a no-maj for most of his life then turned up on MACUSA’s radar just in time for his brother to catch the flu and tragically die was - well, it’s not the easiest thing for Jacob to keep straight when he’s talking to people, let alone on the triplicate copies of the inheritance law he has to fill out.</p><p>“There was a marriage,” he says airily, and hopes she doesn’t look into it too much. He hadn’t quite meant to pull an elaborate fraud on the wizarding government. He’d just turned up with Frank in his shell and panicked, and then Graves had gone and disappeared back to the sea and MACUSA decided this random brother figure was his next of kin - it was a bit of a mess.</p><p>Graves had laughed when Jacob told him. “You can keep the money,” he’d said. “I can’t spend it underwater. But I wouldn’t mind if you brought me some books occasionally.”</p><p>“Oh,” Queenie says, making a moue of disappointment. “You’re not still married, are you?”</p><p>“Um,” Jacob manages. Queenie cocks her head as if listening, then smiles.</p><p>“Oh good. I’m free at four.”</p><p>“Um.”</p><p>“Pierogi? What’s - oh, they look delightful! Yes, let’s do that. I’ll see you then.”</p><p>“<em>Um.</em>”</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Tina says tiredly. “She’s like that. Here, I think this is the last one.”</p><p>And in summer, when the beach is bustling with people and the pier is thick with anglers and fish-watchers, Jacob opens his bakery. Graves, it turned out, had spent a lot of time working and very little time enjoying life during his stint as a human. He’d given his blessing for Jacob to turn the savings into something useful. Newt had whistled excitedly and done a flip.</p><p>Jacob’s bakery opens officially at eight am. Jacob himself gets there at four, when the beach is empty and the sun isn’t up. It’s a pain getting everything transported down the pier, and the generators need a while to get going. A lot of people ask him why he bothers - surely business would be as good if he set up by the boardwalk? Or better, even; surely there’d be more customers if he was closer in to land.</p><p>“Maybe,” Jacob tells them, “But I like the customers I have here.”</p><p>At five thirty, there’s a splash from outside his back door, followed by a high, chirupping trill.</p><p>Jacob grins. “Morning!” he says. “I swear you can hear my oven timer. They’ve just come out, you’ll need to wait for them to cool.”</p><p><em>Croissant,</em> Newt signs, tail beating rapidly to keep his top half out the water. <em>Croissant! Hello Jacob. Croissant, please. </em></p><p>“Morning,” Graves adds, swimming in a lazy circle around one of the legs of the pier. “Any change with the Goldsteins?”</p><p>“No,” Jacob replies. “I still don’t know how they know, but they’re keeping your secrets.” He blushes. “Queenie made me hot cocoa,” he confesses. “We had it with strudel. I think they’re good people.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Graves allows. He still doesn’t trust humans, and he’d still rather keep all creatures as far away from MACUSA as he can - but he’s coming to learn that some are ok, and he remembers Tina at least with fondness.</p><p>Newt slaps his tail against the water. <em>Croissant,</em> he signs impatiently, punctuating it with a whistle.</p><p>“Coming right up,” Jacob promises with a salute. “I swear, sometimes I think you prefer my pastries to me.”</p><p><em>Never,</em> Newt signs. <em>Jacob is best manatee-friend.</em> At least, Jacob thinks he says manatee. It’s not one of the signs he’s found in his teach-yourself books, but Graves promises him it’s a good thing.</p><p>He grins as he inspects the tray and picks out the flakiest one. Six months ago he’d been coaxing rough puff out of his tiny bedsit kitchen and praying that the bank would like the taste enough to give him a loan. Now his mornings are spent with mermaids, his day is filled with cake, and his evenings are split between learning sign and finding interesting things to share with Newt, with occasional highlights of visiting the most beautiful girl in the world.</p><p>Frank even stopped by a few weeks back. He didn’t stay long, thankfully; Jacob might now be MACUSA approved but he’s probably not meant to have a thunderbird on his roof. He did give Jacob a friendly headbutt that nearly knocked him over though, and spent a good twenty minutes playing tag with Newt over the waves.</p><p>Newt trills, and Jacob shakes himself out of his thoughts. “Hold your horses,” he says good naturedly, nabbing a new book for Graves on his way out that Tina had waterproofed for him the day before. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”</p><p>A very different life to the one he was facing when he came to the beach to clear his head six months ago.</p><p>But an infinitely better one.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Listen, if canon!Jacob can claim that his uncle was a house elf, then my Jacob can claim that his brother was the head of the DMLE. Bullshitting and being down to punch a dark lord in the face are two intrinsic Jacob characteristics and my mind will not be changed on this.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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